Happy Birthday Crispin Freeman! A very talented actor with an incredible voice that's just incredibly pleasant to listen to. Love Crispin's work as Alucard, Itachi, and Winston in particular, and he was pretty awesome as Firefly in the Arkham games too.

I am really looking forward to hearing Crispin Freeman reprise his role as Kirei Kotomine in the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feels series whenever that finally gets dubbed. Especially considering how Kirei gets shafted hard in the Unlimited Blade Works route and that Kirei really gets to shine in the Heaven's Feel route. This will be Crispin's time to shine as the older version of Kirei. Having seen the first movie already in Japanese and how great Joji Nakata is in the role, Crispin has big shoes to fill but I know he will nail it, he nailed Kirei in Fate/Zero but now we're getting to some of Kirei's finest moments and I look forward to hearing how he pulls it off.

It's also cool that last year in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, he got to reprise his role of Speedy/Roy Harper from Young Justice as a nice little cameo/fan service for YJ fans and I can't wait to see Crispin return to the role for Young Justice season 3.

@Shaun Ince That's such perfect casting & I'd love to see Crispin as more of Loki. To be honest (raises shield) I find him a more natural fit than Troy Baker or Graham McTavish (very good, but probably too old-sounding).

Anyone know the story of how he reprised Zelgadis in the Slayers Premium dub? Did he actually travel all the way to Houston to record it? Did he phone ADV as soon as they licensed it and convince TPTB to use him instead of replacing him like everyone else?

@ScottMyers He also mentioned that, after asking the dub producers several times to unionize (as the show had made it insanely big, beating out almost all other children's shows), so that the actors might be able to use their work on the show to support their children & save for retirement (& New York has outrageous living costs!).

As most people know, the pay for anime dubs, essentially due to it being foreign-produced & only paid for by small companies...isn't a lot. & for most shows, it's pretty fair, seeing as anime's content is generally pretty niche.

* However, Pokemon (as well as DBZ & a few other shows) is a major, major exception, & I suppose he felt that...this was an opportunity that wasnt being used properly.

Unionizing here could have given a decent amount of residuals to the VA's in question, especially seeing that the *session rate* was still extremely low.

However, 4Kids refused, & alongside the "faithful dub vs joke dub" issue, this led to Crispin straight-up resigning from writing for Pokemon's dub.

He was just one guy, doing the only part he could. & this is one of SEVERAL times that Crispin has spoken about & shown his appreciation & passion for the recognition of anime to be taken seriously & treated no worse than other mediums.

@huzaifa_ahmed
FWIW, I think Crispin Freeman was one of the best writers to work on the Pokemon English Anime dub: he actually managed to write dialogue in a witty way, but also in a way that wasn't obnoxious and avoided pitfalls like slang, alliteration, rhymes, etc (a very notable problem with the current dub's script writing, IMO).

@Joel the Pokekid
As well as the newer Yu-Gi-Oh dubs, both of which I personally find horrendous and terrible in quality. I feel like almost all of NY's good voice over talent has either moved away, retired, or is gone now- it's sad.

@Dr.Who There's several actors there that are also just underused now. Like Lisa Ortiz. I hear her main priority right now is directing Pokemon episodes, but I just wish she would be in more dubs besides the occasional new Queen's Blade, Ikki Tousen and Slayers.

Crispin Freeman tells a funny story where he did mo-cap as the protagonist for Capcom's Dragon's Dogma. Since the game allows the player to customise their "Arisen" to play as both genders, Crispin was told there will be scene where he'll act as a woman. When it time to shoot the romantic scenes in mo-cap suits, the make faux breasts, the production team used two foams, the size of toasters with their corners shaved off to give it curvature and mounted them onto Crispin's upper half. Although Crispin did his best in acting dashing with foam toasters on his chest, the scene partner found it too funny.

Easily one of the greatest voice actors to have ever dubbed anime, his involvement in a dub automatically makes it worthwhile the watch. It's a shame they don't unionize as much dubs as they used to, they really should do so a little bit more often.

I have so many favourite roles from his work in anime including Alucard, Zelgadis, Togusa, Shizuo Heiwajima, Kirei Kotomine, Jeremiah Gottwald, Haji, Van Argiano and Holland Novak, I also like his voices for Electro, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Winter Soldier, Red Arrow, Firefly, Breakdown and despite having never played those games his Sundowner and Albedo Piazzolla sound gleefully wicked.

In the past year I finally got around to watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Crispin Freeman's performance as Kyon was by far the best part of the dub. Both he and Tomokazu Sugita rock this role and personally I feel Crispin gave one of the best performances of his entire career as Kyon in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie, he brought so much passion in just about every line in that movie from beginning to end. I was very impressed. Kyon's definitely in my top five favourite roles of his for sure, where though in order I'm not sure?

I also finally saw watched Hellsing Ultimate back in October and his Alucard did not disappoint. He was the perfect blend of terrifying and being gleefully hammy and over the top. I totally agree this is one of his all time best characters, a truly epic vampire.

He was also great as Mr. Maheswaran, Bullseye, Punisher, Ghost Rider, Titanium Man, Winter Soldier, Pyro and Agent Venom (well so far he's maybe the most fitting voice for the character).

His Winston in Overwatch is also no doubt also an interesting upcoming new role for him. He sounds fantastic in the trailers I've heard him in thus far.

I really love that he's been doing more major anime roles again between reprising as Shizuo Heiwajima, Kyon and Kirei Kotomine. He still does a great job with these roles even after all this time. I hope we get to see more unionized dubs this year and in the years to come.

Happy Birthday Crispin Freeman! Definitely one of my all time favourite VA's whether he'd be in anime, video games or western cartoons.

@Galactic_Cyrus Honestly, I think George would've been better for Setzer (or even Vincent for that matter) and... yeah you heard, a slightly deeper or rather "huskier" itachi.. it could have been perfect.

Rude... yeah, but it was basically another version of Freeman's Alucard. Again: Miscast. In my op: Rude should've been voiced by Phil LaMarr.

@Aussieroth George would've worked, but I always hear Crispin's voice like he has in the Holland Novak clip for Setzer. For Vincent, I can't imagine George at all. I liked Steve Blum in the role (in AC at least), but I'd rather it be someone like Robin Atkins Downe doing a Vincent Price-styled voice. (The character's name is VINCENT and he turns into horror creatures: it's the only type of voice I could ever hear for him!) And yes, that voice would have been a perfect fit for Sephiroth.

It's his Alucard minus the scariness. Phil LaMarr would be great, but thanks to Crispin's take, I can never get the Kevin Conroy-esque voice out of my head when I think of Rude's dialogue.